I. The first feature to which we will advert, is that it gave us free access to the uncorrupted fountain of truth and duty, God's holy word, as the only infallible rule of faith and practice to us.
Well knowing the treachery of human memory, God, even under the Old Testament dispensation, inscribed the decalogue on tablets of stone, and Moses his inspired servant, made a record of his other instructions, which were to be publicly read in the stated worship of the people from generation to generation, and to be inculcated on their children in the house and by the way. In like manner the inspired apostles, whom the Saviour had commissioned to publish the gospel to all nations, knowing that the holy religion of the Saviour was designed for all generations, reduced its facts and doctrines to writing. The design of this act would be evident from the nature of the case, but several of the inspired penmen have also distinctly expressed it. "These things," says St. John, "are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name."12 Before the New Testament books were written, the Saviour commanded to "search the scriptures" of the Old Testament, and not the traditions or oral reports, which he condemned as tending to make void the sacred word. Paul says: "All scripture, that is, the sacred writings, are given by inspiration of God, and are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." This Paul said in the year A.D. 65, at which time all the books of the New Testament had been published, except the writings of John, the epistle of Jude and 2 Peter. And although there was an order of men appointed to publish the gospel to all creatures; these men were required to study the scriptures,13 and teach according to them.14 Christians were taught to beware of false teachers,15 to search the scriptures daily to ascertain whether these things were so,"16 and if even an angel from heaven should come publishing any other gospel than that taught by the apostles, he should be accursed.17 But instead of adhering to the word of God as the only infallible rule of faith and
12 John 20: 31, and also Paul.
13 1 Tim. 4: 15.
14 Gal. 1:8
15 2 Pet. 2: 1,2.
16 Acts 17: 11.
17 Gal. 1:8. Rev. 22:18, 19. John 5: 39. I Thes. 5:27 Eph. 6:17.
practice, the Church of Rome had, for several centuries prior to the Reformation, elevated tradition, and the decrees of councils and popes, to an equality with God's word. Their reason for this unhallowed conduct may easily be inferred from the confession then made, and recently reiterated by a papal writer18 in this country, that the doctrines and rites of their church could not be proved from the scriptures alone. The earliest records of these unauthorized additions to Christianity were of course not found in the pages of the Bible, but in writers of the age in which those unscriptural doctrines were added to their creed; or, in the canons of the councils who first approved them. The authority of these writers and councils were therefore magnified at the expense of God's word, during centuries before the Reformation, whenever any necessity roused them from their slumber of licentiousness and ignorance to attempt the proof of their corrupt system. But so far as we have been able to learn, no council before that of Trent, a few years after the Reformation, had even formally decreed the entire equality of human traditions and decrees of councils with God's holy word. Yet the Bible itself had for centuries been almost an unknown book. Select portions only were used in worship, and thousands of ministers lived and died without having seen a copy of the entire scriptures. When Luther himself providentially found one in the library of the convent, he was surprised to perceive that the few passages read in the service, did not contain the whole scriptures!! Pelican, one of the reformers, declares, that at the time of the Reformation, a Greek Testament could not be purchased in all Germany for any price! Scarcely any ministers of the age had a critical knowledge of the Bible, and when Luther arose, there was not an individual in the papal world, not even in all the University of Paris, who could confront him on the ground of scripture! But the Reformation and the Bible went hand in hand. It was by the Bible that God commenced the reformation in the heart of Luther in the convent, and by translation of the Bible into the vernacular tongues, did Luther and the other blessed instruments of God propagate the great work throughout Europe. This was so well understood by the Romanists themselves, that as Sarpi, their own historian, informs us, one of the reasons urged at the council of Trent for interdicting the Bible to the laity was, "that the Lutherans had succeeded only with those, who had been accustomed to read the Scriptures."19 And when compelled by the progressive illumination of the age to make some appeal to the "law and the testimony," one of the arguments assigned by that council for adopting the corrupt Latin translation instead of the original, was, "unless the Vulgate were declared to be divine in every part, immense advantages would be yielded to the Lutherans, and innumerable heresies, (as they styled the views of the Reformers,) would arise to trouble the (Romish) church."20 Accordingly the only Bible to which our Catholic friends have access even at this day, by consent of their spiritual guides, is this corrupted translation, or translations of this translation, which after having been carefully corrected, and pronounced immaculate by pope Sixtus V. in 1590, was two years subsequently altered in about 2000 places by pope Clement VIII. the changes in some cases affecting whole verses, and in many others giving a decidedly contradictory signification.21 This translation moreover adds several entire books which do not belong to the word of God at all. And if it were in the power of the Roman pontiff and his priests to banish the genuine word of
18 Mr. Hughes, in controversy with Dr. Breckinridge.
19 Sarpi, Lib. ii. S52. (Cramp 53.)
20 Ibid. p. 52, 53.
21 Cramp's Textbook, p. 52.
God from the world, they would gladly do it. Else why are they so bitterly opposed to the operations of Protestant Bible Societies, whose object is to place the word of God faithfully translated from the original, and without note or comment, into every family? Else how could the late pope Pius VII. in his reply to the inquiries of the Polish bishops, what course they should pursue in regard to Bible societies, use such language as this: "We have been truly shocked, (says his holiness,) at this crafty device, (namely the distribution of the word of God by these societies,) by which the very foundations of religion are undermined. For it is evident that the holy scriptures when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have through the temerity of men, produced more harm than benefit. Continue, therefore, diligently to warn the people entrusted to your care, that they fall not into the snares which are prepared for their everlasting ruin, (or in other words, that they receive not the Bible, offered them by these societies!")22 Ought not every enlightened Catholic to suspect either the capacity or fidelity of those religious teachers, who are afraid to let the doctrines which they teach as the truth of God, be tested by the word of God?
How different is the conduct of Protestant ministers! How different the state of things in Protestant churches! Since the glorious Reformation, the original scriptures are the text-book in the studies of ministers, and are accessible to all of every profession who are versed in the languages in which they are written. They have been faithfully translated into all the different languages of Christendom, and into a vast multitude of heathen tongues, and distributed in millions of copies throughout the countries of the Reformation. The Protestant minister is confessedly the expounder of the word of God, the Protestant layman is taught to search the scriptures like the nobler Bereans, to "see whether these things be so." The grand, the cardinal principle of both is, "the Bible, the Bible is the religion of Protestants!" Fellow Christian, do you triumph in the conviction that the criteria by which you judge your hopes of eternal life, are based not on the ipse dixit of popes and councils, nor on the uncertain tradition of fallible men, but on the infallible word of God? Remember you are indebted for this privilege to the blessed Reformation, and let your gratitude ascend to heaven for this favour! Do you make that word the man of your counsel, and the guide of your life; in every time of doubt or difficulty do you seek instruction of God himself by resorting "to the law and the testimony?" Forget not that the Reformation conferred on you this delightful privilege. Does this word enable you daily to hold communion with those men of God, who wrote as the Holy Ghost inspired? Do you peruse the predictions of the ancient prophets, or read the very letters which the apostles wrote to the first churches, thus enjoying the privileges of the primitive Christians? Do you find the precious Bible evinced a book divine by its elevating, transforming, beautifying influence on your soul? Then forget not, that for all these high and holy privileges, your gratitude is due to the glorious Reformation by which God delivered our fathers from papal darkness and superstition.
„Discourse in commemoration of the glorious reformation of the sixteenth century“ von Samuel Simon Schmucker († 1873), Gould and Newman, 1838 · Text nach einer digitalen Abschrift des Drucks, gemeinfrei · Originalscan bei archive.org · Titelbild schlicht selbst gestaltet